Bobby Bowden says he had prostate cancer while coaching but hid it | Photo Gallery

Former FSU coach said he kept his medical condition a secret out of fear of dirty recruiting tactics

The Associated Press file photo
In this July 27, 2009 photo, Florida State head coach Bobby Bowden speaks to the media during the ACC Kickoff media day in Greensboro, N.C..

TALLAHASSEE – Former Florida State coach Bobby Bowden confirmed to ABC's "Good Morning America" Tuesday morning that he had prostate cancer while he was coaching in 2007, and that he kept his medical condition a secret out of fear of dirty recruiting tactics.

His appearance coincided with a pair of USA Today stories that hit newsstands and Gannett Company newspapers Tuesday morning outlining how he kept the cancer quiet. According to Bowden and the USA Today, a former-player-turned-doctor treated him privately in spring 2007.

Since undergoing the low-dose radioactive procedure, Bowden, 81, has been cancer-free. It took six months for him to be rid of the cancer, he said.

"My doctor called me and said, 'Hey Bobby, I've taken your blood test and we have problems,'" Bowden told "Good Morning America's" Robin Roberts. Roberts is a former sports anchor who overcame breast cancer herself late in the summer of 2007.

Bowden's 8:45 a.m. appearance was due to his work with On The Line, a national prostate cancer education initiative of which he has become a spokesman. Like he said on the morning show, September is recognized as Prostate Awareness Month, and he was there to implore men, particularly those over 40, to get checked.

"I did not understand the significance of prostate cancer back then," Bowden said in the interview with USA Today. "What I knew was when something like that happens to a coach and your opponents find out about it, the first thing they say is ‘Don't go to Florida State. Coach Bowden is about to die.'

"If I knew then what I know now, I would have considered it my moral duty to bring it out in the open."

On Monday night, news of his "GMA" appearance was first reported by a Tallahassee television news anchor.

According to WTXL's Anne Imanuel's @AnneImanuel Twitter account, Bowden was "scheduled to make an ‘emotional' announcement on @GMA (Tuesday) morning." A second tweet read: "Just spoke to an @GMA producer. The Bobby Bowden ‘emotional announcement' won't be released until (Tuesday) AM but it concerns his health."

In an email to the Sentinel shortly after midnight Tuesday morning, Bowden's publicist, Kimberly Shiff, said the information on Bowden was supposed to be embargoed until Tuesday morning.

While the news caused an uproar on Twitter, FSU fans chimed in with their concerns that something was wrong with Bowden. Some members of the FSU media tried to calm their fears, saying that the announcement had nothing to do with Bowden's current health, but that it was important.

Bowden told Roberts and USA Today that urologist Joe Camps, a captain from his first FSU team in 1976, performed the procedure. Camps serves on FSU's trustee board, and has been part of other initiatives around the school and in Tallahassee.

"Joe Camps I knew was going to be a good one because not only was he a great hitter -- strong safety and a good hitter -- he was intelligent and loyal and committed," Bowden told Roberts. "I knew he was going to be successful."

Bowden's secret was so elaborate that Camps told the USA Today that in order to pull it off without the public knowing, the coach was admitted into a Tallahassee hospital under a fictious name, and that the procedure was performed in a secure part of the hospital after midnight.

The coach admitted even his own children, including former coaches Tommy and Terry Bowden, didn't know he had the cancer.

"Bobby is not real big on sharing things that are wrong with him; he doesn't want to admit he isn't perfect," his wife, Ann, told USA Today. She lost her father and a sister to cancer, the USA Today said.

"Bobby has always been so healthy and active," she continued. "This was not expected."

When he learned of his diagnosis in Jan. 2007, Bowden's first thoughts settled on his FSU family.

"My mind was on two things," Bowden told USA Today. "The press will have you on the front page about to die, and opponents will say ‘Bobby is already 77 years old and he has cancer.'"

The retired coach has been busy lately.

According to ArkansasSports360.com, Bowden was in Little Rock, Ark. on Monday to speak to the Little Rock Touchdown Club. While there, it was announced that he had just been named to the coaches advisory committee for the Frank Broyles Award, the website reported. Broyles apparently invited him out there for the engagement.

The award goes to the nation's top assistant coach every year. Bowden's former defensive coordinator, Mickey Andrews, won the first Broyles Award.

Bowden has found himself in the news recently for other reasons.

In addition to an autograph session at a landmark Tallahassee store last Friday ahead of the Seminoles' second game of the season against Charleston Southern, he was in Gainesville the previous Saturday to announce the creation of a new college football all-star game.

Bowden was attending Florida's season-opener against Florida Atlantic to hold a news conference about a game he and fellow coaching icon Howard Schnellenberger were heading. Schnellenberger is in his final season at FAU, but he originally made a name for himself as Miami's head coach in the 1980s, when his Hurricanes and Bowden's Seminoles had their share of epic rivalry games.

There was an uproar about Bowden's appearance there, too, as some FSU fans questioned why he was in Gainesville for a rival's opening game, instead of at FSU at the field that bears his name. He has said since stepping away from the sport in Jan. 2010 that he wishes to build a buffer between he and FSU, and that he doesn't want to get in the way of current coach Jimbo Fisher.

Bowden spent 34 seasons coaching the Seminoles before an emotional, rocky and rather dramatic exit from football following the 2009 season. Since being replaced by Fisher, Bowden has spent his time traveling the world giving speeches and promoting a book.

In 1993 and '99, Bowden led the Seminoles to their only national titles.

On Saturday, the No. 5 Seminoles, under Fisher's guidance, are hosting No. 1 Oklahoma in what is being billed as one of the biggest games to ever occur at Doak Campbell Stadium. It is the first time the nation's current No. 1 team has visited the stadium since Florida did in 1996.

The last team not from Florida to bring a top-5 ranking to Tallahassee was Dan Marino's No. 4 Pittsburgh team in 1980. Marino later went on to have a 16-year Hall of Fame career for the Miami Dolphins.